There is little in life that can top the excitement and exhilaration of hearing a group of musicians taking off on an impassioned flight of inspired innovation, soaring atop wandering chord progressions, navigating solos and riffs along an uncharted course. In Cuba these jam sessions are called descargas, a Forties creation of legendary bassist/mambo master Israel "Cachao" Lopez. Jesus Alemany's new ≠Cubanismo! and a compilation entitled The Montuno Sessions (featuring Charlie Palmieri, Wayne Gorbea, and others) are definitive testaments to the visceral power and daring musicianship of the descarga.

Alemany, a Cuban trumpeter now based in London, performed and recorded throughout the Eighties with the group Sierra Maestra. On ≠Cubanismo! he's joined by some of Cuba's most respected players, including pianist Alfredo Rodriguez and, from the trailblazing jazz group Irakere, trombonist Carlos Alvarez, flutist Orlando Valle, and percussionist Miguel Aurelio Diaz. The ≠Cubanismo! sessions, recorded last year in Havana with British producer Joe Boyd (Richard Thompson, R.E.M.), yielded some brassy, hard-swinging descargas, built around Rodriguez's angular yet melodic rhythms and punctuated by Alemany's piercing, high-pitched solos. And this isn't the kind of meandering and tepid Latin jazz that forsakes the groove for noodling improv indulgence. Rather, ≠Cubanismo! has been masterfully designed for nonstop dancing, whether it's slow and slinky ("Aprovecha") or hyped-up and furious ("Descarga de Hoy").

The nine cuts on The Montuno Sessions are culled from late-Eighties radio broadcasts on a New York City station -- loose, informal, Saturday-night affairs that attracted the finest touring and/or exiled players from Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela, as well as from the Big Apple. This disc -- released on the British Mr. Bongo label but available in the U.S. through Descarga mail order -- gathers some of the broadcasts' finest moments, including a pair of extended descargas led by the late Charlie Palmieri, older brother of Eddie Palmieri and a brilliant pianist and bandleader.

Much has been made of Ani DiFranco's canny blend of punk and folk. But the genius of her eighth and most recent release lies in her ability to spike sweetly strummed melodies with punchy, hip-hop beats. Severe syncopation has always been DiFranco's ace in the hole, and with Dilate it bounds gleefully into the foreground. Witness her ballsy seven-minute cover of "Amazing Grace," in which she bends the traditional hymn toward Gothic rap A bells chime in the distance, an old woman recites poetry, and DiFranco keeps her minor-key delivery pitched just above a whisper, allowing a palpitating drum track to propel the tune. Or consider "Outta Me, Onto You," on which she moans and wails and pounds the catgut over a riot of clanging percussion.

Even the ballads ("Adam and Eve," "Done Wrong") are spiced with rhythms that sizzle and swoop. The irresistible "Untouchable Face," which opens the album, jukes along to a military cadence, and "Dilate" uncoils languidly before exploding in a clash of cymbals that matches DiFranco's expletive-laden tirades.

Her pinched voice remains a remarkably versatile tool, capable of plaintive pleas and bitter rants, often within a single phrase. One minute she's all rasp and venom, like Johnette Napolitano; the next she's as fluid and fragile as Suzanne Vega. And as always her lyrics brim with sly rage and naked grief. From the title track: "When I say that you sucked my brain out/The English translation/Is that I am in love with you/And it is not fun."

As her fans already know, DiFranco is a relentlessly confessional songwriter, and practically every second of this slightly overlong 60-minute disc is a direct comment on her emotional state. Ani laments her love for a married man. Ani vents spleen at a one-night stand. Ani probes her melancholy.

She's self-absorbed, sure, but when an album lays down grooves this juicy, it's easy to forgive her navel-gazing indulgences.

By Steven Almond

DJ Krush
Meiso
(Mo'Wax/ffrr)

DJ Krush doesn't write lyrics, he doesn't rap, and he doesn't even understand English. Nevertheless this renowned Japanese maestro of the turntable creates richly detailed, expansive, mostly instrumental tracks that throb like the greatest hip-hop. Meiso is his third album, but it's being used as a stateside introduction to Mo'Wax, a British label that's fast becoming the premier launch pad for the progressive internationalist beat often called trip-hop. Perhaps to bow to American notions of what is and isn't hip-hop, Meiso includes cameos by some well-known rappers, including C.L. Smooth, Guru, and the Roots. Their contributions sound like afterthoughts, though, and they often get in the way of the music's ebb and flow. No doubt the star of this show is Krush, whose electronic collages shift gently from tempo to tempo while tape loops caress the ear and smooth melodies work around the rhythms. You never know where Krush's innovative grooves will lead you, and considering that Meiso comes from an artist almost completely detached from hip-hop tradition, the possibilities for Krush and trip-hop seem virtually endless.

By Roni Sarig

Carson Kievman
Symphony No. 2(42)
(New Albion)

New voices in classical music still struggle to be heard. Composer Carson Kievman was born in 1949 and studied with some of this century's most respected composers. He has written works for important orchestras and music festivals, yet this is the first time his music has been recorded. His Symphony No. 2(42) was commissioned by the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra (FPO) in 1991 for the 200th anniversary of Mozart's death; the strange numbering probably alludes to the fact that Mozart's 41st symphony was his last. However, Kievman's symphony is not an attempt to continue or mimic Mozart's work; instead, it roughly illustrates the hypothetical journey of Mozart's soul from eighteenth-century life to eternal afterlife. Quotations from Mozart's Requiem -- unfinished at the time of his death -- are part of this journey's baggage, and these quotations are transformed by a chorus as the symphony reaches its radiant, transcendental conclusion.

Kievman uses a modernist's compositional tools, but he's a late-Romantic at heart. Emotional states of terror, joy, resignation, and so on are readily identifiable in his music, and its drama is cinematic. In short, Kievman's music challenges adventurous listeners without alienating those with more traditional tastes. Gustav Mahler might have written music like this had he been born after World War II.

This capable performance is by a Polish orchestra (Katowice) and chorus (Krakow); the conductor is Delta David Gier. (Generally, recording new American classical music is prohibitively expensive in the United States.) It would have been nice if the FPO had done the honors, but the Polish performers present Kievman's Symphony No. 2(42) as if it's a master-work, which time might prove it to be.

By Raymond Tuttle

Carson Kievman will be appearing Sunday, June 2, at a wine-and-cheese reception at Spec's Music, 501 Collins Ave, Miami Beach; 354-3667. The event begins at 8:00.

Joey Altruda
Cocktails with Joey
(Will Records)

Excuse me, but isn't it time for the voguing hipsters of the so-called cocktail nation to cash in their talismans A their lava lamps, their martini glasses, their wraparound couches A and return to the present? (Honest, Ike left the White House a few years ago, and all the Playboy Clubs shut down.) Certainly, listening to lounge music by established masters of the genre such as Juan Garcia Esquivel, Perez Prado, and Henry Mancini will always and forever hold an undeniable kitsch appeal, but cocking even half an ear toward the soulless jazz "stylings" generated by contempo imitators like bassist/bandleader Joey Altruda is akin to attempting to appreciate the dark heart of Edgar Allan Poe's work by reading the flotsam of Stephen King. Interested space-age bachelor-pad suckers can find out more from Will Records, 1202 E. Pike St., Seattle, WA 98122.